Aqua Holiday Edition

Aqua Gulf Islands HOLIDAY EDITION 2017

Living

Volume 12, Issue 6

Musical Magic Christmas With Scrooge returns

island talents Artisans, cider-makers, authors and more

Arts | food & drink | people

| business

| community

The holiday season ... a great time to visit the Southern Gulf Islands!

Galiano Island

When thinking Galiano, superlatives come to mind. It seems to have more of everything, except crowds. That’s surprising, really, given that it’s the first stop on the Tsawwassen-Gulf Islands ferry, a trip of under an hour.

The lanky island seems to have more sunsets, more oceanfront, more spectacular hikes, more beautiful drives, more stunning views, more range of places to stay and eat, and more things to do,.

Mayne Island

This is an island of surprises. Who would have thought that quiet little Mayne Island could ever have been labelled “Little Hell,” for example? Blame the gold rush for that 150-year old label. It was the miners who gave their name to Miners Bay, a jostling halfway stop between Vancouver Island and the Fraser River, en route to the Cariboo. Back then, Mayne was the commercial and social centre of the Gulf Islands.

Page 2 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

Pender Island

Where can you get free killer whale shows with a sunset thrown in? Try Thieves Bay on North Pender. The orcas are a big island summer draw as they feed and frolic almost daily in the rich tidal waters here. These islands have the balance just right, just developed enough to have many amenities, and just natural enough to offer secluded beaches and lonely forest treks, especially on the more undeveloped South Pender.

Salt Spring Island

Salt Spring Island's merchants and craftspeople go all out for the holiday season. It's a great place for boutique shopping and dining in cozy spaces, and with special events like Light-up festivities, the Glowtini contest, along with famous arts and crafts fairs and exhibits.

Saturna Island

How can an island so close to the mainland be so quiet?

The answer lies in the getting there. It’s only 14 nautical miles from the Tsawwassen terminal as the crow flies, but the trip involves two ferries, and can take over three hours. The journey is so scenic, however, that most visitors consider this a bonus — two ferries for the price of one.

Don't miss a visit to the Wild Thyme Cafe in the doubledecker bus!

‘Tis the season…

... to get cozy with family & friends.

And let’s not forget the special seniors in our lives.

Salt Spring Island SeniorCare wishes you and your family all the best for a wonderful holiday season, and a happy and healthy New Year.

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Oak Bay Community Holiday Edition – AQUA – Page 3 778-433-4784 or2017 250-589-0010

contents Christmas With Scrooge scene from 1999.

TANTALIZERS! PAGE 6

HOLIDAY EDITION 2017

31

COVER STORY

Christmas With Scrooge entertains a new and old crowd, PAGE 8

ARTS

Donna-Fay Digance creates dreamscape landscapes, PAGE 11 Burton Bronze Foundry thrives on Salt Spring, PAGE 16

25

VENTURES

Ixchel craft shop brings the world to Galiano, PAGE 25 Agricultural passion gives root to Twin Island Cidery, PAGE 31

BOOKS

The Summer Book offers light in winter months, PAGE 14 • hastingshouse.com • 1-800-661-9255 • 250-537-2362

COMFORT FOOD

Nee Cherdchu of Thailand, PAGE 21

Q&A

The WinterFaire crowd, PAGE 38

16

160 Upper Ganges Rd, Salt Spring Island, BC V8K 2S2 Page 4 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

michael murray photo

Editor’s Message

Time for traditions

P

eter Wigen, a born and raised island guy who now lives in Ottawa and works as a lawyer, contacted me the other day. He wondered when the Fulford carol sing was happening this year and thought I would know.

Peter was glad to hear that it takes place on Monday, Dec. 18. If his flight is on time, he and his family will be able to take in one of the island’s loveliest Christmas traditions: Merry Monday, with singing of carols led by Valdy in Fulford village.

A few days later, he might revisit another tradition from his youth. Newman Family Productions has remounted Christmas With Scrooge, with five shows running from Dec. 20 through 23. As I state in my story in this issue of Aqua, it’s an incomparably delightful original production that should not be missed.

Congratulations to Christmas Fairy Sue Newman and those who prodded and supported her so she could let the Scrooge magic fly again.

Christmas craft fair and bazaar season has already

begun on the islands. In our Q&A section we hear from organizers of a humdinger that I discovered last year: the Salt Spring United Church’s WinterFaire.

Other stories will get readers in the gift-giving spirit, with Galiano’s Rainbow Lady Pam Stanley sharing her enthusiasm, and a visit to the studio of fabric artist Donna-Fay Digance on Saturna Island.

We also hear about the journey of Jacob Burton and his Salt Spring bronze foundry, and how Matthew Vasilev and Katie Selbee on Pender Island have worked hard to open Twin Island Cidery. Marcia Jansen’s Comfort Food column takes us to Thailand this time.

I hope you are able to enjoy food you love, our islands' creative traditions and the joy of giving this season. And if you’re not sure when a certain local holiday event is happening, connect with me and I will do my best to find out. For Salt Spring Island events, see the Driftwood's online calendar at gulfislandsdriftwood.com.

— Gail Sjuberg

2.

2.

Aqua Gulf Islands

Publisher: Amber Ogilvie Editor: Gail Sjuberg Art Director & Production: Lorraine Sullivan Advertising: Fiona Foster, Drew Underwood, Robyn Millerd Aqua Writers: Cherie Thiessen, Elizabeth Nolan, Gail Sjuberg, David Dossor, Marcia Jansen Aqua Photographers: Jen MacLellan, Cherie Thiessen, David Dossor, Marcia Jansen Cover photo of Kevin Wilkie, Christina Penhale and Ruby Williamson in Christmas With Scrooge 2017 by Jen MacLellan Aqua is published by Driftwood Publishing Ltd., 328 Lower Ganges Road, Salt Spring Island, B.C. V8K 2V3 Phone: 250-537-9933 / Email: news@driftwoodgimedia.com Websites: www.driftwoodgimedia.com; www.gulfislandstourism.com; www.gulfislandsdriftwood.com Publications Mail Reg. #08149 Printed in Canada

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Living

This issue published November 8, 2017

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NANCY ANGERMEYER photo

pieces by Bach, Barber, Britten and Handel, traditional arrangements by Willcocks, Rutter and Davies, and a new suite composed by Vancouver’s Brian Tate with lyrics from Emily Carr’s work are on the program. Concerts are at ArtSpring on Saturday, Dec. 9 Giant Book Sale. at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 10 at 2 p.m.

• The Galiano Club’s annual Christmas Market is on Saturday, Dec. 2 this year. It sees the South Galiano Community Hall filled with great crafts, gifts and a chance to catch up with neighbours over lunch. The following Saturday evening, Dec. 9, sees the Coro Galiano community choir perform at the hall. The choir is conducted by Susanne Laughlin and Pat Pilat.

• The year’s favourite community activity for lovers of books and gems is coming up on Nov. 17-19. The 11th annual Giant Book Sale and the 3rd annual Jewels for Literacy Sale will fill the Salt Spring Farmers’ Institute hall with good-quality used books and jewellery of all kinds from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Sale proceeds benefit the Salt Spring Literacy Society.

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JEN MACLELLAN PHOTO

• On Island: Life Among the Coast Dwellers by Saturna Island’s Pat Carney is a must-have islanders book for the 2017-18 season. It features 20 fictional short stories of community life on an unnamed island, with every Gulf Islander able to recognize themselves and their neighbours in one form or another.

As the BC Bestsellers website summarizes: “Featuring a revolving cast of characters — the newly retired couple, the church warden, the musician, the small-town girl with big city dreams — Carney’s keen observations of the personalities and dramas of coastal life are instantly recognizable to readers who are familiar with life in a small community. With her narrative of dock fights, pet shows, family feuds, logging camps and the ever-present tension between islanders and property-owning ‘off-islanders,’ Carney’s witty and perceptive voice describes how the islanders weather the storms of coastal life.”

Carney is a former Canadian senator and cabinet minister who has lived on Saturna for some 50 years. On Island is published by TouchWood Editions.

• Salt Spring Singers choir members are gearing up for a stunning seasonal Pat Carney. concert called Yuletide Fires. Sacred

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Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 7

Cover Story

DERRICK LUNDY photo FROM 2005

is

Back!

After an 11-year hiatus, a Salt Spring Christmas classic is reborn By GAIL SJUBERG

Photos as credited

or many people who’ve lived on Salt Spring for more than a decade or two, the Christmas season was not complete until they had seen Christmas With Scrooge.

Virginia Newman's score and the Sibelius program version.

Page 8 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

Put on by Newman Family Productions, it was a unique take on the Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol, complete with original music and features like the Fezziwig Ball and its Tipsy Maid and Spotty Dogs, and the Christmas Fairy.

It was touching, hilarious, sweet, musically delightful and carried the essential message of love and charity being more important than the accumulation of wealth.

If you’ve seen Christmas With Scrooge, I’m sure you will be recalling some favourite scenes as you read this. If you haven’t, don’t worry. You will soon have the opportunity to be charmed by a legend of island life that has been dormant for a while. Christmas With Scrooge is set to run at ArtSpring on Dec. 20, 21, 22 and 23, with shows at 7:30 p.m. each night plus a matinee on the 23rd at 2 p.m.

ANDREA PERRINO photo

At left: Eric Booth as Scrooge with island kids in the 2005 edition of Christmas With Scrooge, which was the last time it was staged.

This year Scrooge will be played by Patrick Cassidy — on left in the photo at right with the show's musical director Karen Arney and Kevin Wilkie as Bob Cratchit.

It’s been 11 years since the full-scale version of Christmas With Scrooge was last seen by the community.

The musical began life under the hands of Ray and Virginia Newman in 1971 as a show called Christmas Madness, and continued to morph over the years. It appeared in Mahon Hall and the United Church, and then ArtSpring after it opened in 1999. It didn’t run every year, but often enough to gain “tradi-

tion” status.

Ray died in 1999, but the show carried on until 2005, when Virginia’s health declined so that it was not possible to continue. Virginia died in 2013.

But no one wanted to accept that Scrooge might never come back.

Ray and Virginia's daughter Sue Newman describes her experience as the visible face of the Scrooge production.

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ANMDREA PERRINO photo

NEWMAN FAMILY photo

Above: Metta McNairn with Spotty Dog children Ryder and Rory. McNairn is the Spotty Dog trainer in this year's show.

At right: Christmas With Scrooge creators Ray and Virginia Newman in 1976, when the show was still called Christmas Madness.

Page 10 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

“I’d walk through Ganges on any given day, over the years, and have a former cast-mate or audience member say to me, ‘Do you think it’ll be this year?’ or ‘Are you ready? We are!’ or say no words at all, but just look at me with that Scroogey question in their eyes.

And I’d shrug and say, ‘Well, I’m thinking about it!’ Or, I’d roll my eyes in an OMG sort of way. I longed to, but it’s such a marathon, and I’ve not had the emotional strength. And as the years went by, the possibility seemed less and less likely.”

But it seems the nudges and questions needed to be absorbed by simple time to gently open Sue’s mind and heart to the possibility of bringing back the Scrooge magic. She is the production's director and co-producer, and plays the Christmas Fairy role, as she always did.

Key to the show's return is the foresight and musicianship of Karen Arney. A well-known island keyboard player, Arney made sure that Virginia’s music could be played by someone else in the future. She took the time to record Virginia playing all of the Scrooge songs on piano at her home one day, using a computer and the score-writing Sibelius program.

Until then, explains Patrick Cassidy, a co-producer who will play Scrooge this year, “Virginia was just using charts and filling the music in, so we didn’t really know what notes were being played.”

Arney’s work meant the musical part was taken care of, and other aspects have fallen into place beautifully.

Kathy Ramsey, who was one of the first Cratchit children in the Christmas Madness era, was eager to help with promotion of the show. She had returned to Salt Spring after a few decades away, where she was immersed in arts endeavours on Gabriola Island and with the Arts BC organization.

“Kathy said the reason she got into the arts was because of Scrooge and Mom and Dad in 1971,” says Sue. Ramsey aims to make the show really inclusive, ensuring physical or financial barriers don't stop anyone attending.

Gathering cast members has been the easiest part, even though more than 50 Scrooge veteran and new actors are involved.

Christina Penhale is new as Emma Cratchit and Kevin Wilkie is stepping back into a role he knows well as Bob Cratchit. The Fezziwigs are played by Leslie Corry and Tim Kemp this year, although past Fezziwig favourites Murray Shoolbraid and Lynda Jensen are still in the show.

Cassidy was immediately impressed by this year's Spotty Dogs.

“They are the only Spotty Dogs I have known who actually put the costumes on and then started acting like dogs and jumped through the hoops. They knew exactly what they needed to do.”

For two of the Spotty Dogs it could be because their mom Metta McNairn (née McLeod) was a child of the Scrooge production herself and the magic has been naturally passed on. She is also the dog trainer in the play's Fezziwig Ball scene.

Having several members of different families participate has been a Scrooge hallmark, and this year's show continues that trend.

Be prepared for some real Christmas magic at ArtSpring, and make sure you get your tickets early!

Island Artists

Art in Stitches Donna-Fay Digance of Saturna Island’s Dreamscapes Studio Story and photos by CHERIE THIESSEN

Above Lyall Harbour on Saturna sits an exquisite five-bathroom,

six-bedroom home designed specifically to be a bed and breakfast, an income for a creative couple who were making the move from the mainland to semi-retirement on a small Gulf Island.

“I taught in the Coquitlam School District for 30 years,” Donna-Fay Digance is telling me, “then took early retirement from teaching and my husband said, ‘Why don’t we open a B&B on the Gulf Islands?’ We took a look at all the islands and Saturna was the one that felt right. My husband, Len, got sucked in because everyone waved to him when they drove by. We liked the air and the quietness, so we looked for six months and we bought this property in 1991 and then built on it and opened in August of ’94.”

Digance credits the move for some of the amazing versatility and complexity of her evolving creative process.

“When you live on a small island you have to make your own entertainment. You can’t just say, ‘I don’t feel like working today. I think I’ll go to the art gallery,’ or ‘I think I’ll go buy some art supplies.’”

When you take a classically and extensively trained artist with a sense of adventure and a zest for experimentation and put her on a small island where there are few distractions but copious natural beauty and serenity, maybe this is what you get: riveting fabric multi-media collages that look remarkably like traditional canvases but are three-dimensional and tactile. To bring her canvases to life, the artist uses a variety of fabrics combined with drawing, painting, batik and textile dyeing and textually enhances some of her works using machine embroidery.

And that machine is one hot creative tool. Some years ago, Digance treated herself to the Janome 6600 Memory Craft, which is now as indispensable to her as her paints and her brushes.

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 11

“I’ve always sewed, ever since my Home Economics classes back in school, so I’m used to stitching.”

— DONNA-Fay DIGANCE

Donna-Fay Digance with a fabric-art piece at her home.

Previous page, from top: With triptych at Saturna's national park office; Digance's Janome sewing machine.

“I’ve always sewed, ever since my Home Economics classes back in school, so I’m used to stitching.” She shows me the Janome. “It’s not computerized and not really an embroidery machine, although you can do those things. What I have on here right now is a walking foot and that’s how I am able to draw on the piece. It can go in any direction I like. Also, if I’m working on bigger pieces there’s more room on the bottom, so it is adapted for quilting.”

I ask her to explain how she goes about creating some of these pieces.

“I’ve been experimenting with using photos of my larger art quilts. I play around a lot and manipulate the image on my computer using ‘I Draw’ and Photoshop. Because I’m working with cotton I really have to exaggerate the contrast. If I just have a picture and I print it, it just Page 12 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

fades. I then print the new image on a specially prepared cotton or silk sheet. I add batting and backing to create a quilt ‘sandwich,’ which I re-quilt using free-motion machine stitching to create new lines and textures. I then add metallic acrylic paint to create depth and ‘bling.’

The edges are finished and the completed piece is a new image, which is framed or mounted on canvas. Here, look.”

She shows me a 4x6 of an arbutus. “This photograph is printed on cotton sheet. That’s my canvas once I’ve printed it. It’s my base to start with. Then I can do a lot of stitching and painting on it. The photos I use are of my own art quilts. Some artists use actual photographs of a landscape or subject they’ve taken and stitch on that, which is not what I’m doing.”

Often a studio visit enables visitors to see how artists have progressed and to visually track their artistic journeys, and in Digance’s Dreamscapes Studio the evolution is exciting. The artist’s works have evolved from her first collection of intaglio prints, and in several pieces I can see the vibrant figures dancing and leaping through space.

“To me the landscapes I do now are still my dreamscapes,” she explains, “because like the fantasy figures I used to draw earlier, they are still my imagination juxtaposing unexpected things.”

And, as she also points out, her trees still have shape and movement.

They still embody the fantasy and the vibrancy; they’re sylvan dreamscapes. “But when I came here, landscapes took over.”

I want to know about intaglio printmaking techniques and she explains that when she went to UBC to obtain her masters of art education degree she took some printmaking courses and got into etching.

“It’s an Italian printing and printmaking technique in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. I even bought a press but when I came over here I didn’t want to use those chemicals because at the time they were using nitric acid, so that’s when I took up quilting. I didn’t take that up until I moved here and met some quilters.”

Extensively trained, Digance obtained her Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Alberta, and then travelled to England to pursue post-graduate studies for a year at the school of art in Goldsmiths College, where in addition to her post-graduate studies she also met her husband Leonard (Len), himself an artist, a potter and sculptor.

After the couple’s return to Canada, Digance went to UBC. Further classes were taken at Emily Carr School of Art and Design and the Banff School of Fine Arts.

“It doesn’t matter how many techniques you learn if you don’t have that basic knowledge and training in structure, design and drawing,” says the artist, who has used those basic techniques to ascend to new artistic heights. “Because of all the courses I took I have a lifelong training in composition, design and colour that’s coming out now, and even though I have a huge stash of fabric now I find I just want to dye and paint my own silk and cotton.”

She obviously knew from an early age that she wanted to become an artist, so I ask how that came about.

“My mother was my mentor and she always bought me top-quality

supplies when I was at a very young age. We spent a year in Vegreville, Alta. and there was a leading artist there called Laura Reid who really inspired me. She had a painting group and I got included in that at the age of 11. I did my first life-drawing course when I was 14. I loved Chagall and Van Gogh and the artists who used lots of movement and imagination. It was hard to find the time for art when I was teaching all those years, but since my retirement I’ve made up for it.”

She really has. With at least 10 group shows and exhibitions at Robson Square Media Centre, North Vancouver Centre, SFU and elsewhere, and several prestigious commissions, she is well and truly ensconced in the western Canadian art scene. She was commissioned by Parks Canada to create a triptych for their Saturna field office. The three panels, each 28” x 60” in size, represent a different ecosystem within the island’s park areas and feature hand-painted silk and Pima cotton with machine embroidery and quilting techniques. It was a commission that had her working night and day to complete by the deadline.

In addition, her work was chosen to represent the Gulf Islands by the Capital Regional District for a quilt project celebrating their 50-year anniversary, and she regularly shows with the Vancouver Island Surface Design Association.

She is also a member of the Fibre Art Network and has pieces in two travelling exhibitions: Botanic Reflections at the Van Dusen Gardens and Ekphrastic at the La Connor Quilt Museum in Washington.

“We have a local group on Saturna as well called Art Saturna, so we have different group shows and we had our own gallery down at the Saturna Point Store.”

These days, the multi-media guru is creating very affordable mini pieces like the arbutus one she showed me. It’s coming home with me.

• Artist website: www.donnafaydigance.com • Leonard Digance’s jewellery is also featured in Dreamscapes Studio. He features high-fired porcelain earrings and pendants with layered glazes as well as hand-crafted lightweight titanium earrings.

• To visit Saturna, check out BC Ferries schedules at www.bcferries.com.

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 13

Summer Book lends charm to bleak winter days mother tongue publishing collection BY ELIZABETH NOLAN

W

ith winter’s dark, cold days just hitting their stride, Christmas is the perfect time to pass on a gift characterized by warmth and light.

The Summer Book, a collection of short stories, essays and passages by 24 British Columbian writers, is just such a gift. More so, however, the Mother Tongue Publishing collection edited by Mona Fertig of Salt Spring is a compendium of really good writing that happens to take up summer as a common theme.

Interspersed with reproductions of etchings, relief prints and watercolour drawings, the stories indeed make up “a treasury of warm tales, timeless memories and meditations on nature,” as the front cover promises. And like a delicious summer picnic, there are plenty of small bites suiting a range of tastes from sweet to salty.

Award-winning writer and naturalist Briony Penn recounts with wistful relish a memorable season in My Summer as a Boy. The story shares the wonder of our local environment and the seeds of experience that

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AQUA 64

Shot on location at Peninsula at Norgarden

Roy and Philip get up to no good in the games room.

helped lead to the writer’s later career.

One beautiful passage recalls swimming at night among bioluminescent diatoms — topless, as one of the boys.

“I knew none of the science that I know now; I just knew that the water was velvet with life moving down my bare torso,” Penn writes. “As I swam on my back leaving a trail of light, shooting stars cascaded in the universe above.”

The story also contains some pearls of wisdom from Penn’s great-grandparents, who were long-time residents of Salish Sea shores. Reading the passage just after this fall’s first horrific “rain event” on Oct. 18, I was startled to find the great-grandmother’s pronouncement that the Salish Sea summer begins precisely on July 19 and ends on Oct. 16, “the day that autumn rains commenced in earnest.”

In contrast to Penn’s thoughtful reflections, Denman Island writer Des Kennedy kicks off immediately with the wicked sense of humour that has seen him nominated for the Stephen Leacock humour award three times so far.

As Kennedy submits at the start of his piece Coming to the Love of Summer, “summer really does bring out the worst in people.” By people, he mainly means writers prone to hyperbole. Perhaps that’s because he spent his childhood near Liverpool, “where the fog and cold rain of winter only grudgingly gave way to the slightly less miserable drizzle of summer.”

Despite the tendency for people to go overboard in praise, Kennedy recounts how he grew seduced by summer’s charms in North America, once he got over being sunburned all the time. As a gardener, the season “proved as addictive as any opioid.” Kennedy too became “capable of purple prose sprouting more vigorously than spinach.”

Jane Eaton Hamilton, a writer who has lived on Salt Spring and in Vancouver, provides a recent example of her work that makes clear why she keeps winning CBC story writing contests (among other prizes). Bull Shark

Summer combines a grandmother’s intent to introduce a toddler to the open water with tender memories of doing the same thing with her own children. The St. Mary Lake beach setting — well-known to many islanders — becomes fascinating and a little surreal through her conversation with a precocious boy about the local “lake sharks.” The story is touching, funny and perfectly constructed.

CBC radio personality Grant Lawrence shares a different perspective on the summer home that made his memoir Adventures in Solitude such a big hit. His piece 40 Dolphins for 40 Years reveals a long-standing curse of birthdays spent at the Desolation Sound cabin, and the magical experience that redeemed his 40th (only after smashing his knee, though).

Brian Brett, a Salt Spring writer and poet with too many honours to name, closes the book with recollections of many seasons past in Where Are the Snows of Yesterday’s Summers?

There many more treasures to be discovered inside the lovely, high-quality package. Find The Summer Book at local bookstores or Wintercraft.

• Mother Tongue has also just completed its Unheralded Artists of B.C. series of 10 books with The Life and Art of Arthur Pitts by Kerry Mason.

Pitts produced an important visual record of Coast Salish, Nuu-ChahNulth, Kwakwaka’wakw, Haida, Tlingit and Ktunaxa people and communities in British Columbia and Alaska in the first half of the 20th century. He sold his collection of First Nations paintings to the Royal BC Museum and the Glenbow Museum.

“Largely unknown, Pitts left a unique record, adding to the rich tapestry of artists who lived here in the last century,” states press material.

A launch event takes place on Nov. 18 at the Salt Spring Public Library at 3 p.m.

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 15

Artisans

Cast in Salt Spring’s Burton Bronze Foundry captures fine art market

BY ELIZABETH NOLAN Photos by Jen MacLellan, except as noted

E

verything and anything is being described as “artisan” these days, from sandwiches to furniture.

And on an island where many people make their living with their hands, the word has perhaps lost some of its original cachet.

Describing a local studio as having an artisan ethic might therefore seem redundant, but a visit to Burton Bronze Foundry underlines everything associated with the artisan’s medieval roots. Aside from the heavy tools and the crucible of molten metal, there are the skilled craftspeople overseeing a highly specialized and arcane art.

After more than a decade slowly growing his business, Jacob Burton has made a name by specializing in fine art castings. His clients include local artists Nicola Prinsen, Paul Burke and Abraham Anghik Ruben, whose sculpture Shaman’s Dream welcomes people to the University of Manitoba’s Aboriginal Student Centre. Vancouver-based sculptors David Robinson and Michael Abraham are frequent clients.

A carved cedar sculpture called A Timeless Circle that Burton cast in bronze for Susan Point, the acclaimed First Nations artist, is a focal point outside the Audain Art Gallery in Whistler.

With the closure of one of the only other bronze foundries nearby — the owner of the In Bronze foundry in Langley retired earlier this year — Burton is getting more calls than ever but staying true to his roots with his home-based operation.

“There’s not too many people doing what I’m doing here,” Burton says. “It’s nice to keep it small and work with one or two employees. I’d rather have a longer waiting list than to be out-of-control busy, which means I’m able to have a little Page 16 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

COURTESY BURTON BRONZE FOUNDRY

more choice in the work I accept instead of taking everything I could get like in the first half of my career.”

Burton has overseen more than one young sculptor in an apprenticeship role. Kaelin Palcu, who worked at the foundry for several years, just started studies in Italy at the prestigious Florence Academy of Art. Evan Finer, another young islander, has recently signed on. He studied metalwork at Selkirk College and the Kootenay School of the Arts before coming home to Salt Spring, and had previous experience blacksmithing and making sets and props with his father Bryn Finer.

Burton’s entry into metalwork also took place at art school. He attended Emily Carr University (then College of Art and Design) from 1995-99. After the foundation year he decided to go into sculpture, casting his first piece at the school’s foundry.

“I kind of realized it was definitely my niche — so that’s how it all started,” Burton explains.

During his art school years, Burton worked part-time as a monitor in the metal room, which gave him the opportunity to learn about the foundry tools and equipment. After graduating he found work in Vancouver’s film industry, building sets, making molds and sculpting — mainly in clay and foam — for the props department until the industry dried up in 2002.

Burton had been away from Salt Spring for close to 10 years by that point and felt it might be time to come home. At first he found work doing odd jobs and carpentry.

“That’s when I decided I needed to follow my passion, which is sculpting,” Burton said. At the same time, he realized there was a need for a foundry that could serve artists on the West Coast. He started the process of building his own facility so he could do some casting for his mother, the artist Diana Dean, who had been commissioned to do a portrait piece.

“That’s how I started. I still didn’t realize there was a business opportunity at that point. It was way more about following my passion,” Burton says.

The turning point came when Burton and his previous partner had a daughter, Davina, in 2005. The time had come that he had to make a decision around how he would make a living.

Now that he and his current partner Sarah Hamilton have had two more daughters, Burton is happy to have established a viable concern.

“My mom was a huge support at the beginning and for the first couple of years,” Burton says. “We reproduced some of her work at the time I was learning the whole process, all the different stages.

There’s a lot of trial and error to make things look good.”

“The first few years were really challenging — mostly all the time I had to spend to fix all my mistakes,” he continues. “Although I learned in art school how to do some of the steps, it didn’t really hit me until I started to produce work. The learning curve is really steep.

Now I’m still constantly learning.”

From top: Susan Point's A Timeless Circle in Whistler, which was cast at Jacob Burton's foundry on Salt Spring Island; apprentice Evan Finer, left, and Jacob Burton with the crucible at the foundry.

Previous page: Work by Abraham Anghik Ruben, Salt Spring-based artist and member of the Order of Canada, also cast by Burton.

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 17

“being an artist, knowing how to focus and attend to detail is very important.”

— jacob BURTON

Because the process to create a hollow bronze casting involves five different steps, Burton has to always be two steps ahead in order to achieve the finished product. The system starts with an original sculpture in wood, stone, clay or another material. Burton mainly works with established artists who either want limited-edition reproductions for gallery sales, or one-offs for public installation in museums or other institutions.

Being a sculptor himself has given Burton an edge in this work.

He’s both a metal technician and an artist, bringing both sides to bear on his casting.

“It’s a huge part of it. Being an artist, knowing how to focus and attend to detail is very important,” Burton says.

The process The ancient lost-wax casting process has roots as far back as 6,000 years. It involves a series of positive and negative forms.

Working from the artist’s original, Burton first creates a flexible Page 18 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

“negative” mold of silicone rubber, which is surrounded by a supportive mother mold made of fibreglass or plaster. The flexible mold consists of two or more pieces to produce a hollow wax positive, and can be re-used and stored for many years.

Once a complete wax casting has been assembled from the flexible mold it goes through “chasing” — buffing down seams, refining the edges and cleaning up details so it resembles the original sculpture as closely as possible. Depending on the size/ complexity of the piece, other parts of the sculpture may be attached at this time or they may be cast separately and welded together later.

When the wax replica is ready, Burton attaches a sprue system, also made of wax. The sprue system involves attaching a waxed paper cup with a channel or “gate” made from thin wax bars. This will set up the path for the bronze pour in the final step. At this point the wax object is ready to become the base for a negative ceramic mold, made by dipping the replica alter-

Clockwise from top left: Jacob Burton pours excess wax from mold; Evan Finer removes ceramic shell pieces; work by Ladner artist Michael Abraham.

Previous page: Nicola Prinsen rabbit sculpture.

nately into a vat of slurry and then into silica sand. The process involves three coats of very fine sand to capture all the details and then a further 10 to 12 coats of coarser sand. Just two coats can be put on per day, so this stage alone takes around a week.

At the end, a brittle shell about a half-inch thick has been built up all around the wax. The shell is then fired in a kiln, cup side down, so the melted wax pours out or is “lost.” The mold has to be cured at 6,650 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours. The ceramic mold is then cooled, vacuum cleaned and inspected for cracks, with the negative space left inside ready to be filled with bronze.

Pour day is an exciting event at the foundry, as it only happens about once a month, and will involve a number of different pieces.

“To fire the furness I need to have enough work to make the furnace hot,” Burton explains.

Getting a propane furnace capable of melting metal was the biggest expense of starting the business. It can reach 900,000 BTUs, which as Burton notes, is like having 900 barbecues going at the same time. The metal he uses — a silica casting bronze that is 94 per cent copper — goes into the heavy crucible both in bars and leftover scraps. While that’s happening, the ceramic molds are being preheated to 1,400 degrees F. The crucible can hold up to 240 pounds of alloy, so Burton has to measure how much each piece will need. The wax to bronze weight ratio is about one to 10.

Once the molten metal has reached around 2,050 degrees F, the

molds come out of the kiln and are set upright in a sand pouring bed. The crucible is moved over to the bed using a mechanical winch and a rolling boom. Then Burton carefully manipulates the crucible to pour melted bronze into the ceramic mold’s cup and channel.

Once the shells are cool enough to handle, they are moved outside and cracked open with hammers or air hammers. The bronze- filled cups and gates are cut off and the chasing work begins, with rough edges smoothed and surface sandblasted.

The final step is finishing. The bronze can be left as is, polished, buffed or coloured with a patina treatment. This involves heating the surface so the pores open up, and brushing or spraying the sculpture with a solution. Different chemicals can produce a range of colours, from straw and beige to amber, brown and burgundy to black, grey and silver. Shades of blue, grey, red and white are also possible.

“That’s a huge part of this process, the finishing work,” Burton says. “In the past 15 years I’ve really learned a lot about the colouration of the bronze. It really does make or break a piece, and I’m working with other artists who want a certain colour. I have to see what’s achievable and try to produce what’s required.”

The patina is sealed either with wax or lacquer and then it’s ready for the artist to pick it up. The timeline from start to finish is six weeks at minimum.

Learn more at www.burtonbronzefoundry.com.

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 19

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From Phuket

to Salt Spring Pad Thai for the whole family STORY & PHOTOS BY MARCIA JANSEN

You’d be surprised by how many different nationalities live on Salt Spring Island. And each one of them has their own comfort food.

Marcia Jansen is a Dutch journalist and writer who has lived on Salt Spring since 2012.

F

our years ago Jutamanee Cherdchu swapped one tourist destination for the other. She, her husband Lyle and their two daughters Catalina and Asia moved from Phuket, Thailand to Salt Spring Island.

Phuket, Thailand’s largest island, is a dream destination for many. More than a million tourists visit the island on the Andaman Sea coastline every year.

“Phuket is a great place to live, but it became too crowded for us,” says Jutamanee, or Nee for friends. “The girls went to an international school on the other side of the island and I had to drive one hour to get them there, so I was in the car for four hours a day. Driving back and forth to school I saw a lot of accidents, and when I got hit by a motorcyclist while crossing the road, I knew I wanted to leave.”

Nee had met her Canadian husband years earlier in Thailand, when they both were crew members on a private ship.

“Lyle was the captain and I did the cleaning and assisted the chef with the cooking,” says Nee, who lives with her family in Long Harbour. “Not long after we’d met, we moved to Phuket to work on another private yacht and after seven years we went to France to work on a ship there.

But when I got pregnant with Catalina I wanted to go back to Thailand.”

Shortly after Catalina was born, they moved to Vancouver.

“My husband grew up in Calgary, but as soon as he was old enough, he headed to the West Coast to be closer to the ocean. We lived in Vancouver for two and a half years and when I got pregnant with Asia, we moved back to Thailand again, to Udon Thani, the place where I grew up and where my parents still live. Udon Thani is situated in northeast Thailand, close to the Mekong River and the border with Laos. In summer it’s even warmer than Phuket, but also cooler in winter, although it

never gets colder than 12 degrees Celsius.”

The family returned to the West Coast in 2013 and bought a house on Salt Spring. “My husband had been on Salt Spring when he was young and he accidentally opened an email from a realtor and saw this house.

It was already sold, but the offer fell through and Lyle bought it without seeing it. It overlooks the ocean and, as a captain, he loves being close to the water.”

Catalina was 11 years old when she came to Salt Spring.

“I was pretty excited to move,” Catalina, now 15, recalls. “All my friends moved to elsewhere at that time, so I had to say goodbye to them anyway. But I still miss Phuket: the warm weather, the ocean, the food, the polite people.”

Nee had a hard time when she’d just arrived on Salt Spring.

“I was a bit lonely,” Nee admits. “Luckily my bus driver introduced her to a woman from Thailand and she introduced my mom to her friends,” says her daughter.

“There are 12 to 13 Thai people on the island,” says Nee. “We come together every 10 to 14 days. We bring food, talk and cook together. I have English lessons, but it’s nice to speak in my own language.”

Nee works in a bed & breakfast and started her own nail salon — Nee’s Nails — from home where she gives manicure and pedicure treatments.

“Women in Thailand go to the salon, where they do your nails and your hair, almost every day. It’s so affordable, I never washed my hair at home. I miss that here. So when I was back in Thailand I did a lot of courses and started my own salon. I love this job and it’s a nice way to meet people.”

Every year Nee goes back to visit her family and friends in Thailand.

“Every two years we try to go with the whole family, but this time I will go on my own for six weeks. The girls stay here with Lyle. Catalina just learned how to make Pad Thai, so she can cook when I am away.”

Catalina: “My mom cooks Thai food almost every day.

She makes a lot of different meals, so it’s always a surprise when we come home.”

Pad Thai

Nee and Catalina.

Ingredients • 1 package rice noodles • vegetable oil • 2 eggs • 3 Tbsp. tamarind sauce • 2 Tbsp. fish sauce

• 2 Tbsp. white sugar • 2 c. bean sprouts • 1/4 c. crushed peanuts • 3 green onions, chopped • 1 lime, cut into wedges

Directions Soak the noodles. Heat oil in a wok or large, heavy skillet. Sauté tofu until browned. Remove, and set aside.

Heat oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Crack eggs into hot oil, and cook until firm. Add noodles, tamarind sauce, fish sauce and sugar. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Mix while cooking, until noodles are tender. Add bean sprouts, and mix for 3 minutes. Serve with the tofu.

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 21

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Right Business

Galiano’s Rainbow Lady Plans to retire turn into business purchase

BY CHERIE THIESSEN

Photos by Cherie Thiessen, except as noted

In Mayan mythology, Ixchel is the “Rainbow Lady.” She’s the Mayan goddess of the Earth, the moon

From top: Outside of Ixchel; Pam Stanley with her dog Tortilla; goods inside the store.

and medicine, depicted frequently with a snake in her hair and crossbones embroidered on her skirt.

On Galiano, Ixchel is a bright and lively craft shop located on Georgeson Bay Road. Its owner, Pam Stanley, is not adorned with snakes or embroidered crossbones, but she can certainly be associated with rainbows.

Her red hair with shades of fuchsia segues perfectly with her 100 per cent cotton, handwoven, pastel-blue scarf from northern Thailand and the shades of mauve in her Gilmore black bamboo tank layering dress and tunic almost but not quite match her vibrant smile as she beams, “I’ve found my dream job!”

Her enthusiasm for her retirement profession is contagious. She poses with her rescue dog, Tortilla, “part Chihuahua, part Dachshund, with a splash of Jack Russell. Tortilla’s more photogenic than I am,” she says. Not true!

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 25

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small fire. Canadian-made totem bags, art ceramics, clutch and cosmetic bags, scarves, clothing, jewellery, soaps, oils, cushions, lotions, hats, paper sculpture, and of course those hand-painted silks and those Ghanaian creations, all irresistible and all priced reasonably.

“I go to trade shows and use companies that Laurene had already established relationships with, as I loved what she did so much,” she adds. “Then I’ve added quite a few of my own that I found online or at trade shows or from research or recommendations. Gilmore Clothing, for example, is a Vancouver company that designs and makes its own clothes. The Maisha Project is another Vancouver company I love to work with. They go to Africa every year and help build schools and work right in the communities with the profits.” (Maisha’s mission is to transform lives and empower communities by providing lasting solutions to address poverty, hunger, disease and lack of education.)

“I’ve been into design and textiles ever since I was a child. I love natural fibres, sustainable, bamboo, organic cottons and focus on those. Chloe Angus is also a Vancouver firm, but I’ve also got fashions from Thailand, India, Nepal and ethical jewellery crafted by Maasai tribeswomen from Kilimanjaro.”

I can’t remain still any longer. My fingers find the Fabulous Foutas: wraps, tablecloths, throws, beach blankets in 100 per cent woven cotton or 70 per cent bamboo and 30 per cent cotton. I want to roll up in one of those blankets. Then I spy some familiar work from two Pender Island artists: Debbie Katz’s felt artistry and an amazing fibre and feather tunic by Joanna Rogers.

The Rainbow Lady is ringing up my purchases.

“I’ve never owned a business before,” she tells me, “but I just dove right in. I meant to retire and I bought a business. But then I don’t even think of this as work.”

We’ve got that in common. I don’t think of writing this as work either: and being forced to shop. Oh dear! facebook.com/galianoixchel

The rainbow arches way beyond Stanley and Tortilla, though. The interior also blazes with colour and browsers can find pots of gold in every corner. I have to remind myself to interview first and touch later, pulling my eyes back reluctantly from the gorgeous handwoven baskets from Ghana and my hands from stroking the seductive hand-painted silks.

She has noticed my twitching hands.

“I especially love to feature local artisans and I’m always pleasantly amazed at all the creative talent on this island. It’s a true gallery store. It’s funky, it’s eclectic, and I love the fact that the original owner, Laurene Stefanyk, had a social conscience and was community minded. She bought from companies that featured sustainable, fair-trade practices, working closely with communities and with profits going back to the artisans, allowing them to carry on with their cultures and traditions. I didn’t intend to buy the shop. I had worked part time for Laurene for a while when she told me that she was going to sell it and I thought, ‘Darn!’ Then some time later, I just seemed to wake up one morning and think, ‘I’m going to buy it.’ I wanted it to carry on in the same way she had done and I also wanted to keep the same name, a name Laurene had come up with when she had travelled in South America.”

The store had originally been Froggies taco stand and when Stefanyk and her partner for the first five years, Haidee Lief, decided to begin Ixchel, they added to it.

“We put in windows and the slab wood we used for the counter, exterior and display shelves all came from a local sawmill.

George Harris and Mike Hughes did the work. It became a great local meeting place.”

The sale to Stanley went through in 2013.

She had first come to Galiano in 2004.

“That was the first time I set foot into the store and I loved it right away. At that time I was coming back and forth from Vancouver on weekends and then I moved here five years ago. The island just grew on me.

I never thought of living on an island but it just got under my skin.”

Just like becoming a storeowner, I think.

Here’s a woman who’s open to serendipity.

Now in its 27th year, Ixchel is going strong and Stanley couldn’t be happier.

Although it’s a compact space, there’s no sense of crowding in here. Everything cozily settles into its place, like Tortilla by the

Above: Shirt, shawl, hat and bag.

Below: Dresses and fabric art pieces hung outside in summer months.

“The island just grew on me. I never thought of living on an island but it just got under my skin.”

— PAM STANLEY Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 27

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We can help you find something for all your booklovers.

Between 5:00 and 8:30 p.m. also during the Merchants Open House, you can take pleasure in a free carriage tour through downtown Sidney. Offered by Victoria Carriage Tours on a first come/first served basis, this is a charming way to begin the holiday season. The Carriage Tours also will be available on Saturdays and Sundays between December 3 and 23, from 12 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., at a minimal cost of only $30 per carriage. Each carriage seats up to six. The tours fill up quickly, so please book as soon as possible: 250-883-3651 (reservations highly recommended!)

Adding to the holiday spirit, you can win a little magic, just by making a purchase at a participating Sidney merchant between December 2 and 23. The Sidney BIA is pleased to announce a special “scratch and win” promotion with outstanding prizes that include a night at the Pier Hotel, spa treatments, restaurant and cafe vouchers and many, many more. Yet another reason to enjoy the holiday season in Sidney!

Check out distinctlysidney.ca for additional details.

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North Pender Island’s first cidery STORY AND PHOTOS BY DAVID DOSSOR

T

he hand-painted wooden sign says “Closed.” It hangs at the beginning of the driveway downhill to the work yard and tasting room of the Twin Island Cidery on Razor Point Road, North Pender Island.

A car stops by the sign, then another stops behind it. The drivers study the sign, look down the track, see the tasting room doors open and a car parked in the visitors’ parking lot. Then, like deer who have their prayers answered by a garden gate left open, they charge ahead and enter to sample the treats.

“But we are not really open yet,” says Matthew Vasilev, hastily on guard to protect his bottled delights and my interview time. “We are just finishing up an interview,” adds Katie Selbee, joint partner in this cidery enterprise.

“I know,” said the visitor, “but I am from Alberta and I always like to bring my friends here for a tasting and, besides, I need to have my growler refilled.”

The curious Albertan logic wins out. The small tasting room becomes replete with guests as one car spawns another. I turn off my tape recorder and turn on my camera.

The cidery attracts big time. But it is not just the product that entices. It is the sheer passion and joy that Vasilev and Selbee display that bring the crowds into that small room. Their effervescent exuberance fills the space; no disingenuous sales ploy here. What they are doing excites them and drives them. Both knew what they wanted, a commitment to working the land, to creating a farming permaculture.

Their journey together began in 2013. With a consuming interest in sustainable farming, they independently found themselves working at the UBC Farm. For Selbee, this was a farming practicum program, part of a one-year farming study exploring all aspects of farming. It was in addition to her initial focus on a degree in English literature. For Vasilev, eager to add to his organic farming experience, this was volunteer work. Like attracts like, and so, serendipitously, in the year of 2013, they found kindred spirits in each other.

So how did Selbee, an urban Lower Mainlander with a penchant for the fine arts, become interested in farming as a way of life? She explains: “I had been taking envi-

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 31

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Page 32 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

Duncan Realty

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INDEPENDENTLY OWNED AND OPERATED

At left: Twin Islands Cidery sign.

Page 31, from top: Katie Selbee serves customers; Matthew Vasilev pours cider into a tasting glass.

ronmental science courses and learning about the impact our industrialized food system has on the environment. That, along with reading Wendell Berry (farmer, poet and environmental activist), convinced me that small-scale diversified, organic farming has a key role to play in creating positive change. When I started farming at the UBC Farm I was incredibly inspired to see that the majority of farmers leading that change are females. It had honestly not occurred to me before that I could be a farmer as a female.”

Although Vasilev grew up around the world, he stayed long enough in Montreal to earn a degree in Canadian and Russian history. His roots, however, are in the Southern Gulf Islands. His father was from Pender and his mother from Salt Spring. Most summers he returned to Pender and always regarded it as his true home.

Then one summer, not too long ago, the young couple, a self-confessed part of “the millennial trend of back–to-the-landers” looked at all the lovely apples on the Vasilev trees and with a little encouragement from a cider-making family friend they sprang into action. Brewing became an annual tradition and in four years they produced over 3,000 litres to share with family and their many lucky friends.

Cider making and all it involves, from apple growing to marketing their product, became an avid interest for them. They toured cideries and talked to cider makers in the U.K., Washington state and in B.C. Then, in February 2016 they had the very good fortune to partner with local landowners on Pender who had recently acquired a neglected orchard on Agricultural Land Reserve land, who wanted to see something beneficial for the land and community and who were lovers of craft cider.

For our “back-to–the-landers,” it was a supreme opportunity to dedicate themselves to their passion. The two-acre piece of land became their field of dreams. Here on Razor Point Road, not too distant from the Port Browning dock, is where they are establishing a new cider-specific orchard and where the cider mill and tasting room are situated.

On the Gulf Islands, sometimes uncared for and unseen apple trees abound. Even on the smaller, ferry-free islands, like Portland, Russell and Prevost, orchards planted at the turn of the century still produce. Salt Spring boasts of growing over 450 varieties, with an apple history dating back to 1860. Pender, too, has its fair share of heirloom apples, growing on trees lovingly brought from Europe by pioneer homesteaders. For our Pender Island cider makers, the apples were there for the taking, providing, as it were, the core of their industry.

But what is a cidery without a tasting room? To make this happen, so many regulatory bodies needed to be satisfied. It was no mean task and

quite an outlay of expense, considering they would have a year to wait before their cider market prospered. Undaunted, propped up by their optimism and reassured by other cider-makers that “If you build it, they will come,” they satisfied the bureaucrats and immersed themselves in the myriad tasks that needed to be done.

Researching apple culture, becoming proficient in identifying the different kinds that would produce fine cider and understanding the growing needs of young trees were just a few of the tasks necessary for the eventual establishment of their orchard, which will be a fine example of organic permaculture. To this date, they have grafted 1,300 trees, aware that most should be “bittersweets” and “bittersharps” since they have high levels of acid, tannin or sugar, and that these properties are the prime ingredients for fine cider. Slowly the grafted trees, on their “dwarfing” rootstock, are being removed from their mulched nursery beds to be transplanted in their new location.

Most apples in last year’s cider production came from Pender Island, but the cider couple also had imports from Mayne and Galiano. Previous years of experimentation had shown them a lot and they were able to determine what heirloom apples to use and blend for different types of cider. They learned about Cox’s Orange Pippin and its associated refreshing acidity, about Belle de Boskoop’s usefulness as a variety for blending, about Golden Russet’s high sugar content, and about how Gravensteins impart delicate aromatics. But they press many other varieties too, each imparting its unique contribution to the finished cider: Old Growth Dry, or Baldwin and Pippin, or Old Orchard Trinity. If you are lucky you may be able to buy a bottle of Late Season Select. This cider is a fine testament to the blending of late season apples: crab apples, heirloom russet and wild seedling apples harvested around Pender Island. These late season varieties are prized because they are the most flavourful and fragrant.

The alchemy of turning apples into golden cider is something that Vasilev has been perfecting over the years. Now with his steadfast partner asking all the right questions, his art is resplendent with expert knowledge. He knows when to harvest, how many picking hours will be needed to collect sufficient apples for a batch, how long to let the apples “sweat,” how to macerate, how to set up a press, how to brew letting fermentation happen naturally without the use of commercial yeasts, how to control temperature, how to control for acidity and how to blend.

Not too long in the business, this cidery has already had its taste of success. There’s only one problem: They may soon need a bigger tasting room.

(And my apologies to the gatecrashers . . . I forgot, they were still running on Alberta time!)

Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 33

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Page 36 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

SALT SPRING ISLAND

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Wednesday, Octob YEAR  ISSUE 42 er 25, 2017 — COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1960 57TH YOURUNIT 2017 — COMM Wednesday, October 18,YOUR Y NEWSPAPER GANGES HARB SINCE 1960 57TH OUR

Shoreline activist group revived

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AGRICULTURE

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Portlock leases, laundromat On-site not supported open house takes place Saturd NOLAN

BY ELIZABETHay D R I F T W O O D S TA F F

BY PAT BURKET The TE non-park use of parkland surDRIFTWOOD CO N T R I B U T Oas R a major issue in Salt Spring faced The Root,Parks and Recreation Commission Salt Spring’s future community food night, as commisMonday business hub, has received a $100,000 provinc debated and eventually turned sioners ial government grant. down two long-term leases for Portlock The Salt Spring facilities.

BY ELIZABETH Park Farmland Trust NOLAN facility on Beddis came with two DRIFTWOOD ST Monday’s Road will agenda AFF allow farmers to store and process their from staff for lease Local governm recommendations ent initiatives to produce, among a five-year lease was One other activities. ges harbourwalk comple approval. project have inspired te a GanThe Rural Dividen Portlock community organiza the d programPark portable during grant from thefor tion to come back a retired and hours, to be used by Ministrydays depths in order school PHOTO BY JEN MACLELLAN of Forests, to protect the surroun up from the Lands, Natural Resourc Fundamentals Inc. as a Save Our Shorelin Friendship ding area. e Operatio ns at and background, Rural Developmentto offer one-on-one sessions for week asking commue issued a call to action this boyfriend Alistair Hayne, with his jersey seen in the place will be used Shepansky finishes a dance at the memorial for her nity membe toJulia HEARTFELT: autism and other diswith friends on Sept. 24. for facility construc public informa with tion, food attend a protion session schedul rs gymnasium cessing equipmechildren Hayne, 16, was accidentally killed by a gun shot while packed GISS nt and foodThe Nov. 4 at Lions business currently rents ed for Saturday,on Sunday afternoon. abilities. prepaHall. The asession ration skills training. has been organize

by Islands Trust at the portable using the regular d planning staff to Salt Springersspace other proposal gauge community opinion on what can learnprocess. more The about The Root booking CARE level of HEALTH development lease with Salt on Oct. 28 from appropriate for a three-year would be 12 the waterfront to 4 p.m. at an was for area. outdoor Program for Port“Save Our Shoreli openEmergency Spring’s house at 189 ne Beddis has been reactiva Rd., where The space. ensure that develop Root building will soon lock office ment in our harbou ted to shoreline zones take anager Dan Ovington rks m P ashape. rs and Inforadheres mation about theobser in our official commu to the principles expresse facility’s the two spaces are either ved design, d purpose and program promise the natural nity plan and does not comof the portable, case the in s underused, will be shared, and commu environment of our villages at all, in the case of offices usedand notinput ornity ,” a press release or the character ideas sought. explains. issued Monda the Capital Regiony Speakers include left empty after Kathy Weisner, building designmoved its administration er Donald Gunn al District who behalf of the group, penned the press release 12:30 and 2 to Ganges. The revenue headquarters on chapters, (at fourseed-sav p.m.), situation. Covering two of the ing expert years ago but got said she was not part of SOS long-term commitments tem, in which there are too few family physid by i s eDan ra Jason 12 Eldercare (at involved recently Greenwoods NOLAN 1 the of p.m.), chair ELIZABETH BY Barb Aust, and Erinanne meanwhile be welcome for fixa Salt Spring LTC after cians to meet everyone’s needs. In answer, would Harper, meeting. D R I F T W O O D S T A F Fattending on senior gives ahealth prepared the chapterwho permaculture presenta “I’m kind of new and financing has proposed that a primary care Society, failing infrastructure Grant ing Roband tion while to it and learning at 1:30 of Salt Springers with an interest in the group A group as 3 p.m.new projects. do feel Ganges t society similar to care and residential services, I go, but I Harbour is an Commua report they hope facility run by a non-profi “We will carenthave produced Norget of Salt Spring health be offering some importa I think we appreci area, improvement in services successful operations on Mayne, Galiano and and David Looking deli-at the Friendship Fundacious tasters on mental the section a vast and we lead to whet people’s proposal from several angles, haveto resource,” Weisner ate whatwill as a nature AND THE WINN Pender islands is the best option for filling the nity Services authored mentalsappetites forand said. for the homeless ER IS . . . : Salt Spring thehardon the island, with help from local politicians health services produce storage said, “I think it’s a win.”

PHOTO BY JEN MACLELLAN Matthews holds gaps.

Ovingtonand National processing that the winner SOS continued on 2 and the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

Prize to-serve population. official committee are key activitie the sticker not haveArt does report to be The member Anthony AndersoHealth Care applied s planned n’s piece to for the Salt Spring Island Residents’ the plinth at Mahon Hall. Anderso it does SSNAP new facility,” organization, but holding of any said on 3 PARC continued examines endorsement finalist islander that n earned Judycontinued on 2 Farmland Trust presiden Joan CARE Report is a new document HEALTH McConnell.come in the three versed well jurors’ who arethe t Patricia people See story fromon top prize Reichert. as sponsored by page 11 and more some of the shortcomings of the current sys-

Boardwalk rezoning plans stir up past concerns

Primary care centre touted Residents’ report looks to other islands for model

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Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 37

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WinterFaire

Q&A From left, Judith Cockrill, Susan Grace, Rev. Clark Saunders and Mary Miller at WinterFaire 2016.

'Tis the season for community craft fairs. WinterFaire Organizers talk about their great creation.

Q. For people who have never been to WinterFaire, please describe what they will see and experience if they attend.

Folks will experience an event stimulating all the senses, with joy and excitement as they arrive at Salt Spring Island United Church’s annual WinterFaire. Highlights include aromas coming from the Christmas Cafe, providing a hot lunch of tourtière, apple cider and goodies. Christmas music flows sweetly from the sanctuary as patrons place bids on silent auction items, purchase items from the cash and carry tables or baskets full of greenery, or stroll through the lower hall to purchase Christmas handicrafts, gifts, traditional Christmas cakes and preserves. There is a children’s only shopping area and a fish pond for the youngsters. Fellowship is abundant throughout the building. The energy is high and everyone involved is amazed to see how all their efforts have come together to create such an eclectic mix of talents for all in the community.

Q. How did WinterFaire start?

In 2009, after a successful summer event in the United Church Meadow (which has morphed into the very popular summer boot sale) it was thought we should have an event in the winter. The Page 38 – AQUA – Holiday Edition 2017

United Church Women were the initiators, as they have provided seed money for crafts. WinterFaire was born, to initiate the beginning of the Advent season, in anticipation of Christmas.

Q. Approximately how many volunteers contribute to WinterFaire?

What sorts of things do they do?

There are many hands preparing and presenting WinterFaire. Many of the congregation, likely close to 35, contribute countless hours to prepare and present crafts, food and decorations. Preparations are begun in September, with the creation of crafts made by a crew at weekly workshops at the church, while others are created in homes. Lise, a member of the congregation, begins making tourtière, while her husband Lloyd is busy mixing many ingredients, including rum, to create Christmas cakes for sale. Another group spends the entire day in the church kitchen preparing preserves for WinterFaire. To see the culmination of everyone’s efforts is truly exciting for us.

Q. How are funds raised at WinterFaire used?

It is Salt Spring Island United Church's largest fundraiser of the year. The funds raised go directly to help the church to function, and be the positive influence it is in the community, including distributing

Smile Cards to feed the hungry, hosting the annual Community Christmas Dinner, and maintaining the Meadow, the beautiful and quiet green space right in the heart of Ganges, beside the church.

Q. Has WinterFaire ever been cancelled due to inclement weather?

A couple of years ago there was an early morning snowfall threatening the annual Saturday event, but those carrying the cookie trays and other goodies did not slip in the snow, and all arrived at the church intact. Patrons seemed not to be daunted by the weather. It was our busiest event ever! We have always been grateful for the dedication of the public.

Q. Do you have an amusing WinterFaire anecdote to share?

Last year Susan, one of the Kitchen Elves, came downstairs with her arms full of dirty dishes from the cafe, heading for the kitchen, when she came upon a scene that made her laugh at the wonder of little boys. A four-year-old was standing on the chair beside the children’s fish pond getting ready to unzip his trousers. His mother caught him in time and asked where the bathroom was! This story caused a lot of laughs amongst the parents in the congregation when Clark, our minister, recounted it the next day.

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Holiday Edition 2017 – AQUA – Page 39

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